My childhood obsession with Webkinz has been reignited thanks to people hand-making custom plushies for the pets I never had

It's that time of year where everyone says they're going to sort out the boxes and bags of stuff that have been thrown into storage, and yes, I'm among the crowd who is desperately trying to do the same. But half the fun of deciding to do this is finding things I've simply forgotten I own, which includes a collection I hold quite near to my heart: my Webkinz. I had about 60 of them growing up, which is absolutely excessive I know, but I didn't love a browser game as much as I loved Webkinz to say the least.

If you don't know what a Webkinz is, it's basically a brand of plush toys which come with a code for you to redeem on the browser game to bring your pet to life, essentially. You can feed them, pet them, take them to the arcade, do daily challenges, you know, all the early 2000s good stuff. It didn't take long at all for me to become utterly obsessed, hence the almost-60+ plushie collection.

However, a few years into my obsession, Webkinz started to release pets that were exclusively virtual, like the Cotton Candy Sheep, the Birthstone Puppies, and the Cloud Sheep. I didn't really understand why, as getting the plushie was half of the fun, but these virtual-only pets were popular and to this day I still see people online looking for them.

When I was younger though, I just accepted the fact they were virtual only and didn't think much of it. What I didn't realise is that people were going out of their way to create handmade, unique plushies of these digital-only critters to put in their collections.

For example, Instagram user Factory_of_Hearts has been creating custom Webkinz for virtual-only pets for years, including both full-sized plushies which you'd get a pet code with, and "Kinz Clips" which were the smaller, bag hanger plushies. You could easily convince me that these were part of the original Webkinz collection, as all of the details even down to their "Magic W" (an embroidered rainbow W patch each of the plushies had) are identical to their virtual counterpart.

I can only imagine the hours of work that goes into creating one custom plush, given a lot of the fabrics have to be designed and printed or dyed too rather than just being readily available online. Let alone the pattern making before you can even start sewing, so I really appreciate that someone is dedicating so much time into keeping childhoods like mine going.

FactoryofHearts doesn't stick to one pet design either, they've created a tonne of different classic Webkinz pets like googles, dogs, lions, cows, and even a rendition of the coveted narwhal plushie, which is one of the rarest Webkinz to get these days.

One of my favourite creations by Factory_of_Hearts, though, is the Magical Retriever. This virtual-only pet was only obtainable via a code exclusive to the trading card game, and there was no guarantee that you'd ever find the code in your packs.

As much as I loved Webkinz, I never got into the trading cards, mostly because they were impossible to find in the UK and I didn't quite have a grasp on what Ebay was at the time, but you best believe I was envious of everyone I saw in the Webkinz clubhouse with a Magical Retriever. Luckily, now I can bypass the trading card system entirely by getting a plushie of the pet complete with all the little sparkles.

Ganz stopped producing Webkinz classic plushies in 2019, but it's nice to see that the community is as alive as ever. If anything, it's dominated by people like me who are desperately trying to hold onto this sliver of their childhood while also indulging in finally getting ahold of pets they couldn't originally.

Although a lot of my collection has been disbanded among house moves and university and generally growing up, I'm excited to start it from scratch again, and you best believe I'll be getting some of these coveted virtual pets in real life too.